How Games Have Influenced Edge of Tomorrow

Doug Liman has been talking about the influence that video games have had on his work, saying that he’s tried to take their best features and inject them into new film Edge of Tomorrow.

“I’ve tried to bring the best aspects of video games, the most immersive aspects of video games, into my movies” he explained. “Just that first-person experience of… you’re not watching other people do it, you’re on the beach, with Tom Cruise, in Edge of Tomorrow. You’re in the trenches with him. You’re fighting the aliens with him. Not that you’re watching other people having the fun – you’re having the fun. You’re having the thrills because you’re really there. I just haven’t done that off of a project that actually started as a video game.”

Liman added that he’s also incorporated some of gaming’s most annoying aspects into his adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill…

“There’s also the frustration of getting pretty far along, then getting killed and getting sent all the way back. So much of the humour that’s in Edge of Tomorrow is when you get sent back to the beginning. Which is a frustrating thing in a video game, and is just as frustrating for Tom Cruise’s character Cage, in particular because he’s got people like Bill Paxton, who is your worst nightmare of a drill sergeant. Suddenly you’ve got to listen to this guy drone on about how dying in battle is this great experience and something to aspire to.”

Edge of Tomorrow is out now in the UK and released elsewhere over the next few days, while Liman’s next project looks to be… the film version of Splinter Cell!

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Chris Tilly is the Entertainment Editor for IGN in the UK and can't wait for the Splinter Cell flick. He can be found talking nonsense on both Twitter and MyIGN.